Crazy Conditioning Relays for Kids!

Kids seldom start playing basketball with the arm strength they need to play the game later on in life. While youth basketball coaches should not necessarily be sending their beginning players to the weight room, there are some fun ways to build up arm strength to increase shooting and passing ability.

For the Crazy Conditioning Relays, coaches will need to divide the team up into three or four groups and line them up on one side of the gym or court. Then, the teams will compete by completing these three relay races:

Spider Crawl

– Players put their hands and feet on the floor, spread wide apart with their backs in the air, and crawl from one side of the gym to the other as fast as they can.

Crab Walk

– Like the Spider Crawl, kids use their hands and feet, but this time their stomachs are up in the air, so their arms and legs are spread behind them.

Wheelbarrow

– This race requires two players, one to be the wheelbarrow and one to be the pusher. The wheelbarrow puts his or her hands on the ground, and the pusher grabs their feet and lifts them up to his or her waist height. Then the pusher walks the other player down the court, while the wheelbarrow walks with his or her hands. Players switch roles at the end of the court and return back to their team. The first team to complete all three races wins!

While kids love these games, coaches need to keep a watchful eye to make sure they are not getting too rowdy. The races, particularly the Wheelbarrow, can lead to injury if players start acting too silly and stop paying attention to what they are doing.

Coaches wanting to add one more conditioning element to the relays can also implement Basketball Push-Ups, where players do push-ups with a basketball between their hands and the floor. The other players can count to ten for the player performing the push-ups.